American pronunciation is all over the place. Brits always make fun of us for saying "Noo York", but I for one don't. “New” rhymes with "mew", for which I don't say "moo". We New Englanders are ridiculed for our pronunciation (by other Americans, that is), especially for dropping our Rs, but, although television has "done a number on" regional speech, we poke fun at other New Englanders too. I can still often tell what part of Rhode Island or Massachusetts someone is from. When I entered the fifth grade, at my neighborhood public elementary school, kids from the northern part of my small Mass. town were in my class for the first time. I said "hahckey" for hockey; they said "hawkey". I said "pahnd" for pond; they said "pawnd". And then they’d switch-hit and say “Nuh Yahk”, and “cahffee”.
Further abroad, people in the Philadelphia area seem unable to pronounce contiguous consonants; they say "woof" for wolf, for example- utterly mysterious. The South, of course, might as well be on another planet, and one can hardly help drawling one's way into a pleasant lull when one is there. What seems especially odd to me is that I detect fewer differences in, say, Alaska than in many of the regions closer to mine.
What I find difficult about British crosswords (aside from the Scots thing, of course) is the very simple stuff. I'll see C????E and the word centre doesn't spring to mind; I instinctively look for a long vowel sound with one consonant before the E.
I've already posted this link here, but here it is again. The setters of the Atlantic Monthly "Puzzler" retired five years ago, but some of their cryptics are archived. They quite often, in my opinion, rose to the level of genius, without relying on Maori weapons and Andean reptiles. An utter joy.
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/puzzler/puzzler.htm